If you could use it like a slingplayer and watch your TV anywhere I would sort of agree with you, but what's so great about all these bells and whistles if you have to be on your home network. The fact that you are limited to your home network is a deal breaker for me, throw in the fact that there's a good chance your not going to be able to download your shows and I don't think this is a "great value"

If I want to watch America's got Talent why would I watch it on my iPad when I can watch it on my 60" TV?

Also lets say you get past the copy protection and you are in Paris for 10 days. I'm pretty sure you have to be on your home network to download your shows, so if there is a few shows you want to download that were recorded during your vacation, and you want to download them in Paris for the long flight back you are out of luck

Sorry being able to watch your cable on your iPad in the same house where your 60" TV sits is not that cool. Being in a hotel room in Germany and accessing your TiVo from San Diego, now that's cool!

If you've got $150 to blow on this, you probably can afford to have more than one TV

Keep in mind the broadcast networks are mandated by the FCC to be marked 'Copy Freely' so even on a restricted network like TWC or BHN a consumer would be able to sideload the Primetime anytime networks (e.g., ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, etc.).

After comparing it to incomparable free apps, you're now going the other way and comparing it to something twice as expensive. The Slingbox point I'll grant you to the extend that the feature is not offered and it would be nice if it was for those that actually care about it. Although, technically it is... in the form of a Slingbox. If they open that floodgate one day, fine by me.

But I wouldn't expect and then complain about not getting it in a Stream for half the price either. I'm also not giving Roombas lower ratings on Amazon for not being Rosie the Jetsons' robot maid.

3/5 seems too low. I think the functionality is perfect. As far as the stuff about "i want to control my TiVo from Paris" goes it just makes me want to laugh. As if there is nothing better to do in Paris than watch a stuttery internet video of your DVR at home in America. I much, much prefer a focused high quality experience than a compromised effort which is what I consider something like Slingplayer to be.

Incidentally I say this as someone who has done a lot of business travelling in Europe and Japan. The sideloading on an iPad would be a dream on a 10+ hour flight.

There are so many little fun things about the Stream for me. Being able to check out shows while someone else is watching the TiVo is one of them. Another one is the way watching TV in bed is so much nicer on a device that you hold like a book. Even the interface is great, it makes me wonder what Apple are planning for their move into TV, specifically the way that a touch screen is so quick and intuitive for controlling TV playback.

What might be cool is if TiVo offered a way to access the Stream from outside the network for side loading only. (there might be some copyright issues for streaming) Then you can reload your iPad with video for your return flight. You can pretty much already do this with a TiVo using TiVoToGo and the http interface, but it would be nicer to transfer the smaller transcoded streams from the TiVo directly to the iPad.

3/5 seems too low. I think the functionality is perfect. As far as the stuff about "i want to control my TiVo from Paris" goes it just makes me want to laugh. As if there is nothing better to do in Paris than watch a stuttery internet video of your DVR at home in America. I much, much prefer a focused high quality experience than a compromised effort which is what I consider something like Slingplayer to be.

Slingplayer looks great if you've got a good internet connection.

This would be cool if you were in Paris, you had a flight back to the US the next morning so you downloaded a bunch of shows off your DVR to your iPad while you were sleeping. Then on the airplane ride home you can watch them. Unfortunately you can't do this.

And we will have to agree to disagree. I would much rather watch a show on my Pioneer Elite 60" than the 9.7" screen on my iPad. Looks like I'm in the minority on this one.

One thing I'd like to see is the next iPad bump up the memory to 128 GB, but I will believe when I see it as apple seems to be moving away from physical storage and moving more towards cloud based storage with services like iTunes match

This would be cool if you were in Paris, you had a flight back to the US the next morning so you downloaded a bunch of shows off your DVR to your iPad while you were sleeping. Then on the airplane ride home you can watch them. Unfortunately you can't do this.

If TiVo didn't use Bonjure for discovery this would work fine. In the old days they used a simpler UDP based discovery protocol that actually worked via VPN. I'm not sure why they decided to switch to Bonjure which does not support VPN. TiVo Desktop has the option to use either one. If that added a similar option to the iOS app, or a way to select the TiVo manually via IP address, then you would be able to actually do that.

True story. So my mom shows up for lunch today, and we both get out our iPads to brag about our latest app. I excited to show off my Tivo Stream. "Look at this", I say, "I can watch an episode of Perception on my iPad, streamed from my Tivo that's right over there".

She says "yeah, I've got that too" and opens HBO Go, which has a dazzling array of cool looking programs and she starts streaming The Newsroom. She can do this while visiting my house, nowhere near her DVR, and not needing to have scheduled any of these recordings. Her app is "free".

Therein lies the problem with the Tivo Stream and why it gets a 3 out 5 rating. It's a $130 device that gives you a capability that many people think they already have, and it has a proximity requirement to the home LAN. Sure, we TCF nerds can argue about how our thing can stream any program we've recorded, and how our latency is low, and how $130 really is a reasonable price considering the manufacturing and marketing costs, and how the HBO Go app isn't really "free" since you pay for HBO. However, the average person just doesn't care. They already have an app that streams cable programming. They don't need to buy a $130 box.

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Apples and oranges. The Stream is like your TiVo and HBOGo is like your OnDemmand service. Most peoplemwould still just watch their TiVo then wade through all the options in onDemmand just to, maybe, find the show they're looking for.

Someday services like that will be king, but for now there is still a market for DVRs and streaming their content to other devices.

We should start taking numbers as to when it goes from 130 to 99. Seems that the slide took about 4 months to drop in price...

Early adopters always pay a premium. I think I paid $800 in order to have the S3 by Christmas. And remember all the complaints when the iPhone dropped in price just a year later?

Putting aside R&D and marketing costs, the Stream has a specific cost to manufacture. If the market cannot support the device @ cost + a small profit then TiVo will stop selling the product.

Unfortunately / fortunately (based on your perspective) Apple has become the Wal-Mart of the CE world. They have created such downward price pressure with their Foxcon labor camps in China that nobody can compete anymore.

Since TiVo is a small company with a modest distribution, it cannot possible match the price points you are looking for.

I'm not looking for the price to drop (i'm actually looking for android support), I'm forecasting it based upon TiVo's history and the general trend for the slow elimination of the early adopter tax.

I believe Apple's big deal was that their initial iphone price drop was so soon after launch. Now their prices seem to drop with regularity after the early adopters swoop in, so those who are patient can time when to jump in for purchase..

HBOGo is a great service! I use it all the time even though I have a TiVo. They offer every original program they've ever aired. I wish more content providers would add a service like that. My only complaint is I have to use my XBox to view it. I wish there was a TiVo app for it instead.